The disclosed embodiments relate to automatic wireless communication device awareness of current conditions related to network charges and rates (“financial conditions”), and user-defined device behavior based on those conditions. The disclosed embodiments give a wireless device user greater automatic control over how rating and charging conditions affect device use.
Users of wireless communication devices agree on rating and charging terms in a service provider agreement. The network service provider, or carrier, typically offers a variety of plans with different variables. The variables include the amount of air time per billing cycle that is charged at a minimum rate, more favorable rates during “off-peak” times such as nights and weekends (as opposed to “on-peak” or “peak”) times, different rates for on-network use and roaming use, fees for special services such as call conferencing and email usage, etc. The amount of time available per billing cycle at a certain rate is sometimes referred to as the amount of time in a “bucket”. For example, the user typically chooses a number of minutes per month, e.g., 100 minutes per month, that are free or charged at a minimal rate. After the 100 bucket minutes are used, airtime is charged, or is charged at a higher rate.
Users benefit from having an awareness of how much money they will spend if they use their device at a certain time or in a certain way. For example, the user might like to know that only five minutes are left in the bucket. This rating and charging awareness is even more important with data connections than with voice connections. For example, sending or receiving email during peak hours may be much more expensive than during off-peak hours. For the user to adjust device usage based on rating and charging conditions, however, the user currently must affirmatively: 1) find out what the conditions are; 2) act or refrain from acting accordingly. For example, for some devices, the user can press keys on the keypad to find out how many minutes are left in the bucket.
Currently, the ability to automatically manage device use based on financial conditions is very limited, and also costly and awkward. For example, if a user wishes for an action be taken based on a condition, such as having particular phone numbers disabled under certain conditions, this is currently handles on an occurrence-by-occurrence basis at the provider site. The provider must program a local provider application to recognize that the device belonging to the particular account is making a particular call when a specified condition is current. The provider must then invoke a native application on the device, such as the call controller, to disable the specified phone numbers. This has several limitations and disadvantages. The user must make a written or verbal request to the provider. The provider must assign someone to program the provider application, and activities of the affected device must be monitored, which slows call handling. The provider can only invoke native applications, not downloaded applications, which limits the actions that can be taken in response to a condition.
Overall, there is a need for an improved ability to automatically manage wireless device behavior based on rating and charging conditions. There is a need to allow the wireless device user greater flexibility to automatically control device use with minimal provider intervention using all of the capability of the device, including the capabilities of downloaded applications.